Labor has passed a fourth law to clear the way for forced deportations to the tiny South Pacific island of Nauru.
The legislation, dubbed by refugee activists as the Anti-Fairness Bill, was rammed through parliament in days with the support of the Coalition, depriving those facing deportation of the final skerrick of their rights. It follows three related laws passed in December.
Voters in May thought they were rejecting Trump-like politics in defeating the Coalition. But now under Labor, Border Force has ICE-type powers to pick up people without notice and deport them.
People who have exhausted legal appeals and are on bridging visas on departure or removal grounds can potentially be seized without warning and put into the deportation process.
The latest law provides extraordinary, sweeping, retrospective powers that gives legal protection to the government for any previous mistakes or unlawful actions they may have made.
Labor is acting tough to avoid criticism from the Coalition and its friends in the media. But every concession to a racist agenda that scapegoats asylum-seekers and refugees gives strength to the argument to go even harder.
The vast majority of people recoil in horror at demands from the Nazi National Socialist Network for mass deportations. But it’s Labor that is laying the ground for such deportations to become a reality.
The Albanese government has concluded a deal with Nauru to take hundreds of non-citizens who cannot be sent to their homelands and cannot be held in detention.
The arrangement will cost $408 million upfront and $2.5 billion over 30 years.
Indefinite detention
Labor’s immediate target is 354 non-citizens who, having committed crimes and therefore failing the Migration Act “character test”, lost their visas—but who cannot be sent to their home countries because it would put them at risk.
This cohort was being held in immigration centres until the High Court ruled that the government could not keep people in indefinite detention, in a case known as NZYQ.
It is a racist proposition. Citizens who commit crimes are free to return to their families and communities once they’ve served their sentences. Some 60,000 people in Australia are released from jail each year. But politicians and media treat a handful of non-citizens as an existential threat.
Meanwhile the suite of deportation laws threatens many more vulnerable people, according to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
“We know that the power of these laws can be used against a broad range of people, including anyone on a bridging visa E that was granted on departure grounds. The government also has the freedom to designate any type of visa it wants to apply these powers to,” it said.
“We know from a Senate inquiry hearing into those Bills that they could affect over 80,000 people, and because this new Anti-Fairness Bill relates to those powers, it is reasonable to expect it could affect the same number of people.”
Among the 80,000 could be those rejected under the Liberals’ “fast track” system. Most have been living in Australia in visa limbo for 13 years, despite having been found to be refugees. Many have jobs, pay taxes, have children born here (who become citizens when they turn 10) but have so far been refused permanent visas.
Others could include those brought to Australia from offshore detention on Medevac visas for health care.
It’s unlikely that Labor is intending to target so many people—each deportee to Nauru will need to be issued with a personal Nauruan visa, which will slow the process. And Nauru, which is smaller than Melbourne airport, would not be able to receive thousands of deportees.
But the risk remains that a future government might decide to use the laws to their full.
Refugee activists will be campaigning over coming months to prevent deportations and make Labor’s shameful laws a dead letter.
By David Glanz
